SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Rally Sequestered

Stocks started cranking higher on a 'better than expected' Chicago PMI and Unemployment Claims, and a so-so first revision of 4Q GDP that went slightly positive, but below consensus, but with a big jump in the deflator.

The Dow Jones Industrial Averaga, aka the Rubes' Index, was hovering just below new all time highs.

Rally rally, until the afternoon when the impasse in the Congress made traders shaky, and took stocks into the red.

After the bell Groupon gave CEO Andrew Mason the boot.

Let's see how the sequester plays out and how they buy and sell around the news.

Intraday commentary and a 'crash warning' here.

FWIW, stocks are trading like commodities here, and thinly. So there are a range of non-reality based possibilities, until and unless the music stops. I am somewhat coyly skeptical in my trading here, with a more 'value-based bias' as much as one can in the fog of currency war and control fraud.

Sequestration Is Coming, Now What?

Chris Martenson: A Steep Stock Market Decline Is Coming - Ritholtz On Risk On/Risk Off

'Life is a school of probabilities.'

Walter Bagehot

...and the tuition is paid in their miscalculation, especially through unintended consequences.

I had this from Adam Taggart this morning.  This is in no way an endorsement of Chris' conclusion, since I am loathe to make predictions rather than forecasts.  But I respect his work, so I thought I would pass it along to see how it plays out.

Quite a bit of his analysis is correct and I cite him often.  I find this market to be 'thinly bought' with steady rises on fairly cynical buying, with declines that are steep and sharp.  

The fundamentals are very wobbly both in US but especially in Europe.  China is unstable and Japan is in transition.  Political leadership is bad to say the least.

So I would say that the right trigger event to a market correction is something that I can see playing out.  However I would add the caveat that the nature of the trigger event will shape that correction, especially in the inter-market relationships and actions.  This includes type of event and location.

Chris' scenario works well with a supply/price shock in energy, or a new sovereign financial failure in Europe.

It does not play out as well with a US based trigger event, a trade war, or some stronger erosion with confidence in the dollar reserve currency system, or a civil dislocation.  Odds-wise Europe and China are better bets for the locus of the next crisis than the US.

Will the next crisis spring from a private financial occurrence like a bank failure, or a sovereign failure?  Will the unholy Trinity of Fed-Banks-Government falter?  Or will it be more political than financial, although the two are remarkably intertwined in this corporatist world of ours.

Note the time frame which is reasonably broad enough to encompass any number of events.  I would add another month or two, although I would expect that the signs of trouble would be pretty apparent by August, even to the extent of a bubble like environment more obvious than today.

And of course we cannot dismiss the possibility that nothing dramatic will happen, and things will stumble along as they have been, from small crisis to ray of hope, and back.  But with increasing levels of background hysteria as I have said we would see.  This could get a bit ugly before it is over.

I do think the monied interests are looting, on a somewhat wider than normal scale, and some recent market action is the buying up of lifeboats at artificially low prices by given the appearance of normalcy. But really, who can say what will happen?  In a market where stocks trade on their own supply and demand like commodities, rather than their underying fundamentals, the very act of betting against such manipulation creates the opportunity for insiders to manipulate even more. And this applies to all financial paper assets, including highly leveraged paper commodities with serious real world consequences, as we had seen in Enron's egregious manipulation of the energy markets.

I am not faulting Chris' analysis in any way.  I am just loath to stick myself to a forecast of a less probable event, given the wide number of variables that can take the storm in this direction or that.   With regard to the intensity of the storm,  as the unknown aphorist once said:

"Great designs have linear consequences.  Bad designs have exponential consequences." 

Have I given you enough possibilities to effectively make no firm prediction, thereby stressing the need for portfolio diversity and flexibility? I hope so.  I would rather make money than be 'right,' except for the longest term wager of all, which too many neglect.

However I am on alert, and will try to get to know what to watch, and then watch it.

I have lost quite a bit of money underestimating the willingness of frightened men in positions of power to engage in financial shenanigans, outright fraud, and seemingly irrational support for the rationally unsustainable. And I hope never to forget that lesson.  Fiat is a powerful drug.

But there will be no sustained recovery until the financial system is reformed, and so we will continue on in a state of fragility, as so eloquently expounded upon by Taleb.

La voilà.

"Chris Martenson is issuing an official warning of a major stock market correction within the next few months. He's only done this once before in 2008.

He's seeing a convergence of both technical and fundamental data that are flashing oversized risks to the downside for asset prices, despite the Federal Reserve's money printing mania which is showing signs of hitting diminishing returns.

He expects the fall in equity prices to happen within the May-September window.

This downdraft will be characterized by lots of volatility, formed by market routs and Fed-inspired rescues, alternating until some form of bottom is reached. Along the way there will likely be a flight for "safety" into the dollar and Treasury paper, but only during the first stage of this crisis.

Once a bottom is reached -- he expects anywhere from 40% to 60% lower than the current ~1500 level on the S&P 500 -- the process will begin to be dominated by rising government borrowing which will cause interest rates to begin to rise.

When that happens, expect capital to flee the paper market for hard assets. In particular, that's when the upwards price revolution in the gold and silver markets will kick into high gear."

Warning: Stocks Likely to Crater From Here

In a related vein, Barry Ritholtz has posted this very illustrative 'risk-on, risk-off' chart. As the 'risk-on' phase continues, the pricing of risk becomes increasing divergent from reality.

I would like to add the obvious that gold tends to move inverse to this, except when 'risk on' is being fomented by a general increase in liquidity that is causing most asset prices to rise. Then we have that odd phenomenon when gold and stocks move in a correlated manner. And similarly, when there is a general liquidation gold falls with stocks.

Gold often moves most strongly higher in a 'risk off' trade not driven by panic selling of everything, and moves lower in a 'risk on' trade driven by a mispricing of risk. I know that this may seem like thin beer, but it is what it is, and it explains why gold acts as a safe haven, but sometimes does not. Bonds have exhibited similarly odd behaviour.

As for stocks, it depends on the character of the market and the nature of the trigger event, to say whether we might have a crash, or just one hell of a correction, within some longer term trend.

So in other words, not all selling, like risk, is of the same character. You have to know the market behind the price, especially when price is used to mislead. If markets were rational and efficient, Wall Street would not have to cheat so much to win so often. Much financial innovation is merely engaged in the increasingly elaborate mispricing of risk in the service of fraudulent outcomes.

“Financial operations do not lend themselves to innovation. What is recurrently so described and celebrated is, without exception, a small variation on an established design ... The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Politicians, like financiers, can make great personal progress towards power and wealth during new eras of innovation like supply side economics, privatization, globalization, and deregulation. What is particularly damaging is when the government, through monetary actions and/or regulatory inaction, extend and pretend if you will, supports this divergence between the promise, the risk, and the reality for its own ends.

The resulting reversion to the norm can have the impact of a thunderclap. So government becomes complicit in the control fraud which it abets, perhaps for certain policy ends, so that finally only those without conscience can abide it. And that is the genesis of the credibility trap, and the ascent of the careerists, and white collar sociopaths.

"All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew."

Charles Dickens

Here Is Something To Think About With Regard to Money

Here is something to think about as the Fed continues to expand its Balance Sheet by buying Treasury (and mortgage debt), with an emphasis on systemic limitations that become a little more apparent at the ZIRP boundary where organic money growth is stultified.

As you may recall, the Fed refunds all profit it makes, that is revenue in excess of expenses, back to the US Treasury. And that includes all the interest collected on the bonds its holds.

So as the Fed buys Treasury debt, and holds it to expiration, it refunds all of the interest payments back to the Treasury, less their expenses.

As long as there is at least one Primary Dealer available to make a market in Treasury debt, the Fed, which is technically prohibited from buying the bonds directly from the Treasury, there is a fairly strong measure of control over both the interest paid and the amount of debt which can be issued.

As a thought experiment, what would it be like if the Fed expressed a willingness to buy ALL outstanding Treasury debt at a set schedule of prices?  What are the limiting factors?  What happens to the debt payments of the Treasury?

Now what would happen if the Bank of England or the European Central Bank stated the same policy for all the relevant sovereign debt?  Would it be the same?  Or why would it be different? 

At the end of the day, the value of a fiat currency is intimately involved in confidence in the mature judgement and trustworthiness of the parties involved in its issuance. 

This is why, although it was superficially 'clever,'  the platinum coin was such a dodgy idea to resolve what was essentially a financing disagreement.

As I have said, at the end of the day, the only limiting factor on the Fed and the Treasury is the value at market of the currency, especially with regard to international transactions.

Isn't fiat currency grand?

Here are two very simple models of currency supply 'management.' The 'considerations' could be thought of as degrees of freedom.

I could have added a significant amount of detail to both pictures, but I wanted to capture the 'essence' of the system in each.  

In the Tripartite Market System the level of debt issuance and its price takes the agreement of at least three parties:  the Treasury, the Fed, and the Debt Market as represented by the Primary Dealer.  In this system it is the level of debt issuance that is managed, and the prices paid for it.

In the Unilateral System the Treasury determines the level of dollar issuance according to its needs.

I *think* one can contrive a non-debt based system that involves more than one party, and does not necessarily require a non-governmental party to be directly involved.

Technically the existing arrangement between the Congress and the President is a two party system.  The Congress authorizes expenditures and the President ratifies, enacts, and adminsters them. 

The 'debt ceiling' arrangement in which Congress refuses to 'pay' by deferring to finance its own previously authorized expenditures is a bit of an anomaly and a symptom of dysfunction.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts

"It’s easier to dismiss something not quite fully understood, and I think that’s behind much of the recent negativity towards the COT as an analytical tool."

Ted Butler, Butler Research, 27 February 2013

Today was 'risk on' for stocks and therefore we had a pullback in the precious metals sector.

The pigmen are feeling pretty cocky about things. And fear of the sequester is diminishing.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Down the Corporatist Rabbit Hole

"And this last enactment [affirmation of Voting Rights in 2006], not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much the same.

Now, I don’t think that’s attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement.

It’s been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.

Antonin Scalia, Speaking About the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Feb 27, 2013

I just don't have the words.

We had a big up day in the kleptocracy today, for the usual made up reasons.

It was higher because the markets are beginning to lose their fear of 'the sequester.' And of course, there is a surfeit of hot money in the financial sector that is chasing paper assets, pushing them around the plate.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Pop Go the Weasels

Gold and silver got legs when Bernanke confirmed that the FOMC was just talking about ending QE. And I think we knew that.

But apparently the metals market didn't right? I think this rally has everything to do with the end to this brazenly artificial paper selling into the options expiration yesterday.

So what next?

Gold is approaching a 50 percent retracement of this big waterfall decline that was driven by the funds. While I feel comfortable in buying long term straight up bullion in moments of such extreme oversold weakness, I am not quite confident yet in taking more longs into a trade just yet.

The sequester is dead ahead, and with the markets this wild and loosely regulatred, it is hard to have conviction using any kind of leverage.

The long term prospects for precious metals remain unchanged, perhaps slightly better given the lack of serious reform in the real economy and the broken financial system.  

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Bernanke Bounce

Housing was rosy this morning, and perhaps deceptively so.

Bernanke calmed the markets and gave the bulls some cajones to by the dip.

Some dip.

The sequester looms large. A lot of bets are on that they will kick the can down the road again.

I'm not willing to take that bet at this time. I am too uncertain here about the short term in this phony market, after this big spike in the VIX. So I have taken a lot of money off the table.

 

Moyers and Wolff: Capitalism Has 'Hit the Fan'

"Even as President Obama’s talking points champion the middle class and condemn how our economy caters to the very rich, modern American capitalism is a story of continued inequality and hardship.

Even a modest increase in the minimum wage — as suggested by the president — faces opposition from those who seem to show allegiance first and foremost to America’s wealthy and powerful."

Bill Moyers, Taming Capitalism Run Wild

A symphony of greed.

I would lay the failure of capitalism, or more properly the lapse of market capitalism into crony capitalism and corporatism, at altar of the triumvirate of the false gods of modern economics: globalization, fiat currencies, and naturally efficient markets.

And of course the fact that it is no longer socially unacceptable to be a lying, cheating conman, as long as you are sucessful at it. Greed is good, and so the achievement of wealth by any means available, as long as you beat the system and don't get indicted, is the epitome of human achievement and worth.

The most insidious trend is the adoption of the 'just-world hypothesis' and a Darwinian rationalization in blaming the victims for the outcome of this flawed set of policies and sanctifying of success.

This will very possibly result in yet another century of turmoil, degradation, and blood.